Category: Uncategorized

We all were contacted by one of our members through E-mail and Twitter and he gathered us all in a group. We first struggled to contact each other through Twitter because of the words limitation (Oh well Twitter! Haha) and we decided to make a Google Hangouts after couple of days. In the Google Hangouts, we discussed the possibilities of what topic we should cover in our video. Then one of our members had this idea of creating a hacker story adapting from a real life situation back in the US. We agreed after some discussion and other possible topics. The story revolves around a hacker which hacks a US Government website and took the contact details of 100 LA Police Officers and then he uploaded to his website and let his followers on Twitter know about that. Also adding, how the FBI tracked the Hacker which is through the Hacker’s Girlfriend Geo tag which is quite popular right now. That is just a brief story from the real life situation. After we discussed about the story and how it’s going to work, we divided the part to every member in our group. The story got two FBIs, a hacker, and the hacker’s girlfriend. We got to choose our own role which is very helpful for everybody because we can make it according to our preference. In brief we got Brett and Supun as the first and second FBI, we got Nadira as the Hacker, and we got Isabella as the Girlfriend.

Preparation – Isabella Mandie

There were different options pre planning the video of what role would be under taken by which individual. Our group came up with different scenarios which included either filming yourself, getting someone to film you to make it look surreal and doing voice overs. The process that was undertaken was using Google hangouts, Facebook and emails to communicate our ideas and make sure that our parts didn’t overlap with each other to enable us to demonstrate our different perspectives of the story.

The forums that our group mainly used was Google hangouts as we found it was an efficient forum to communicate what ideas we had.

Personally, I found Google hangouts very reliable as it allowed every member to contribute. Throughout the process of making the video in figure four you can see I’ve tweeted in regards to our group. I found there were no problems in our group and if there were concerns we would address them straight away, if it was through personally chatting to one individual group member or creating a Google hangout or a group message to make sure that we were all on track. The digital technologies I used throughout my video were iMovie and my iPhone. I personally found that iMovie was an easy forum to be able to create the video.

Personally, I found that developing and creating the video through the girlfriend perspective extremely interesting. However personally I found myself very attentive towards my group and always was asking questions and making sure I was at every Google hangouts. For future improvement I think I need to learn more on making videos and editing them as I found that difficult. However overall I found that my performance was always contributing and trying to help out wherever I could.

Creativity – Supun Hasthimuni

My depiction of the hacker’s living space which was hastily yet subtly abandoned when the detective (me) gets there is comprised of footage shot in my room. The camera makes a couple of swoops between the computers keyboards lit up in blue through which I hope to convey the technology centric atmosphere of the living space. The focus shifts to seemingly random artifacts and books that occupy the shelves, this is a break away from the computer heavy atmosphere of the room while adding what I feel is a level of complexity to the character, through the interest in literature and theatrics.

The video consistently shifts back and forth between the “dwelling” and a time-lapse of an open sky. Shot from my roof with an egg timer the time lapse is meant to juxtapose the environment of the quite serene suburb within which our notorious hacker chooses to reside. The video makes frequent transitions to and from the time lapse in sighting the idea that despite all things life goes on in this quite south eastern suburb.

The music used in the video acquired through creative commons was chosen for its ability to resonate with an urban setting without sounding too dark and dystopian.

The ending of the scene is by far my favourite. After inspecting the hackers room to no avail the detective finds a note attached to the door saying “kiss my ass” this not only shows that the individual successfully outsmarted the lawmen but also has a sense of humour.

Meaning – Brett Barfoot

The investigation carried out by the authorities following the hacking, exemplifies the level of surveillance and the abilities of surveillance agencies today. Internet surveillance has undergone a rapid expansion since the early days of drop boxes like Carnivore left at Internet Service Providers and “secret” rooms installed in an attempt to capture or monitor traffic. The digital revolution has provided authorities a raft of new tools and access points to conduct surveillance.

It could be argued that the video shot from four different perspectives highlights sousveillance and that somewhere in the distance, we are being looked down upon and monitored. Perhaps it argues that technology has reinforced and bolstered the abilities of authorities to monitor us. That the actions of the hacker and the girlfriend were naive given the considerable powers that internet surveillance now has to offer. Or they were naïve to the possibility of being identified. The devil is now in the detail and a splinter of metadata was all it took to track a few criminals on the other side of the globe.

Technology has provided us the opportunity to observe ourselves and how we perform like never before.

However, the line between the use of surveillance to protect or to serve us becomes murky especially in settings where it is typically used to protect and prevent against negative behaviour.

A prime example of this would be within schools where more and more resources are being used to install CCTV systems in the name of protections of students, staff and parents alike. While there are rare examples like this one in India where surveillance is being said to be used to track performance of teachers and students.

For the most part it seems we are bolstering our classrooms in a bid to protect children from harm and monitor them wherever they go.

However if students are under surveillance during their school hours, are they really free to learn and explore and just be kids?

Back in the days of my school yard, my memory of primary school is that of being kicked in the nuts. And I mean a lot. For memory it seemed a week wouldn’t go past without me complaining that it felt like my baby beans had been kicked up into my stomach.

I also remember seeing a classmate capture a seagull on the school oval with a hook and fishing line. The child then proceeded to drag it along behind him as he ran across the oval as if it was some kind of disturbing kite.

I can’t help but wonder if these important instances of discovery and learning could take place in a primary school yard post the digital revolution.

Is it worth the trade? A generation so closely monitored that they are mere conformists rather than wild adventurous rascals?

Bennet and Raab (2007) state that visual surveillance has a ‘chilling effect’ that can hamper the development of students and curtail their creativity, innovation and experimentation.

While McCahill and Finn (2010) discovered that CCTV cameras assisted students into a state of acute awareness that their behaviour was being recorded and to an extent changed their behaviour in fear that their actions could be misinterpreted by watchers.

In the wake of horrific events around the world, more and more is being spent upon securing our school yards and ultimately our peace of mind.

Whether or not the surveillance curtails negative behaviour is debatable.

Taylor (2013) discovered that the presence of surveillance failed to prevent students’ deviant activities and in her study of schools with CCTV surveillance in Northern England, she found that while most children thought a balance of surveillance and privacy could be achieved, they still felt that the surveillance at school was incriminating them.

The effect of surveillance on behaviour codes was also studied. Taylor (2013) discovered that students perceived that teachers were exempt from scrutiny from surveillance as they assumed that teachers were required to conform to the expected behaviour codes of the school.

Perhaps the best solution is for parents, teachers and policy makers to approach issues of security and growth with level heads. If we continue to treat our fears and uncertainties with the application of more surveillance then we’ll keep slapping on measures that infringe upon the freedom of our children to happily grow and develop.

The more and more we become immersed in connected technology it seems the more often we are faced with the implications of our privacy.

A dominant reading of the potential pitfalls of our engagement with digital media is definitely one of dystopia. This is no surprise with fears of big business sharing the traces of data we leave from our engagement online and generally our community is becoming more and more reliant on surveillance.

CC0

This ‘datafication’ of everything we do online has resulted in a new scientific paradigm that is both problematic for both the collectors and the citizens providing it (van Dijck 2014).

It seems that the powers of technology has big business ‘giddy’ with the possibilities of what inferences can be made from data and is collecting large swathes of it, every way they can.

All I want to do is download angry birds without worrying who has downloaded my information and what that says about me?!

CC0

So what exactly is metadata?

The real gold these filthy prospectors are after lies in metadata – the information about our interactions online. One type is descriptive metadata that includes keywords that could lead to inferences about everything from how we react or feel about a certain topic or person to our relationships, wants, needs, fears, hopes and dreams. Theoretically, inferences could be made from a broad range of things just based upon keywords.

Metadata also includes specific information about a user including the title, author, subjects and publisher of information.

From Datafication is bred an exciting new chapter for corporations – predicative analysis – where the real fun starts for those interested in what you want.

Just imagine if you could tell whose line of ‘BO basher’ I am likely to prefer in ten years. Just imagine scientists!

CC0

There’s already evidence that information scientists can make inferences from data left behind online.

Kosinski and others (2013) proved that inferences about human behaviour could be predicted from Facebook Likes. Everything from sexual orientation, ethnicity, religious and political views, personality to intelligence and happiness was derived from social media interactions.

The scariest thing about this seems to be that everyone is lining up with a hand out to get access to our data.

The Australian Federal Government recently released a list of 60 organisations that include everything from local councils to the Department of Fisheries – all strutting their stuff under Freedom of Information Laws.

But it’s not just government agencies interested in the supposed power of metadata, educational institutions also are quite curious about what our smartphone says about us.

The digital footprint I leave behind really means that nowhere is safe. It’s not significant anymore if I choose to shop at home or like something while strolling through uni – everyone wants a piece of me!

While all this is going on behind the scenes, the solution would seem to create a pseudonym and carry it across all of your devices, apps, profiles, everywhere. They can have all the random info they like about I.P Freely!

Perhaps another option – feel relief in the fact that the sorting of fact from fiction when it comes to data mining is probably about as fraught with complication as it is for the citizen who blindly engages with digital media.

The lesson from all of this is to be mindful that while there may be advantages in engaging with digital media, more often than not the potential pitfalls of data retention have yet to be fully realised.

During research into the early topics of ALC203 my interest was sparked by what affect digital media had upon learning? It resulted in a considerable contemplation about how I consumed media in the past 15 years and what the difference was between my ‘High School self’ and the notion of learning now at University.

I discovered during this project that we’re already equipped to handle digital media and Google in particular, however ultimately it’s up to the user whether they’re able to gain the most from such a source of information.

During early planning stages and weighing up the effects of ‘winging it’ upon the final product, a script seemed a vital choice. It resulted in the foundation of everything that the video could become. With a ‘read-through’ draft completed: narration could be recorded, images sourced to suit the narrative – work could commence.

One of the initial dominant ideas I had while deciding upon my topic involved a screen absorbed with footage of Google searches. Ultimately, I screen captured footage of myself entering random Google searches which I later overlaid on top of a static Google search homepage.

Collating images for the video seemed to be ‘a piece of cake’ by just following along with the narrative. However, the sourcing of images via Google advanced image search, Flickr and Pixabay proved to be one of the most time consuming parts of the assignment.

Surprisingly, this project required little Adobe Photoshop work. After a quick cut-out of the Socrates and Phaedrus images (actually Sophocles), the Ancient Greece scene was completed with the use of Corel Video Studio’s ability to overlay objects on top of video footage.

Other examples of Creative Commons use is evident in the opening and closing music sequences. A strong concept drawn out during planning was the idea to incorporate music that elevated along with the amount of Google searches, flashing on screen. This was in a bid to give the effect that more and more searching was taking place and that Google search is used to find just about any answer.

Dream Theatre’s classic ‘Dance of Eternity’ was one track that I had heard again recently and wondered how it could be incorporated. After a search on Google, Soundcloud and Youtube, I tracked down an 8bit recorded version which presented a less dramatic yet engaging version of the original.

Google searching about Google searching sounds tedious, however searching for issues around the main topic of whether or not students are really learning from digital media proved successful. For instance searching: Google is making me stupid brings to light a large amount of dialogue from newspaper columnists to academic research.

During research for early topics in ALC203 led me to a dossier on digital media in Neil Thompson’s book Smarter than You Think. The book proved to be a valuable resource with mention of numerous research studies.

Contemplation of how scholarly research could be presented within a video further reinforced my trust in a script. It acted as a launching pad for the presentation of the ideas to the narration of citations.

Sourcing material to match the narrative proved one of the biggest challenges. The solution was to brainstorm keywords linked from the script which resulted in a lot more options at the Google search bar.

Bringing to life all the creative ideas within the timeframe seemed to be near impossible. However, the assignment taught me that the creative process at times is one of single-mindedness. Step by step, something can be created by estimating the time available for each step.

(592 words excluding citations).

My broader online engagement

Please refer to my results in the Tiffit system along with engagement on #ALC203 hashtag on Twitter. Also, the blog posts at Insearchofi blog.

TEN years ago if you had asked, who I was online? I probably would have told you that I was just myself. Well who else did you expect me to be? This was despite the fact that the few social media profiles I had were all listed under pseudonyms. The only ‘real’ Brett Barfoot existed via my LinkedIn profile.

Looking back at how I portrayed myself online in my mid-20s gives the impression of someone who views the online world as more a means of self-promotion rather than a place where you regularly contributed or voiced your opinion. It was a place where I could demonstrate my professionalism in a bid to impress my next employer. I was adamant then that an online persona had to be a demonstration of someone ‘putting their best foot forward.’ I’d hoped that it was in a way perceived as ‘good,’ ‘wholesome,’ truthful to the best qualities I had to offer the workforce and ultimately capitalism. Whether I realised it or not at the time, Pooley (cited in Smith, S and Watson, J 2014) would have described my persona as a form of ‘calculated authenticity,’ selling myself while attempting not to appear to be selling myself.

It was what I assumed to be merely an extension of myself from offline. Green (cited in Smith, S and Watson J 2014) confirms this tendency when thinking of online activities and the self. It is often perceived as pre-existing, a self ‘brought to computers from the culture at large.’

atmosphericreflections in a discarded computer monitor by Steve Johnson (CC by 2.0)

I joined Twitter in 2010 because I thought it would be a good place to keep track of the news. I started the account with the pseudonym metal_brett – a sort of ‘half-name’ that included my musical taste and my first name. It didn’t take long before I was tweeting, testing the waters and providing customer service feedback about my experiences. On another occasion I decided to respond to a live ‘tweet in’ to the ABC show Q&A. I thought at the time it would be humorous to see my abstract expression broadcast on live television.

Looking back at my behaviour, I believe that the pseudonym provided me some kind of room in order to express my opinions in a public place while protecting my professional identity. While I have since changed my twitter name, the pseudonyms I use aren’t exactly lies, are they? I mean if Jetstar were to do some research and track me down to provide me free flights – which they’re most welcome to do of course 🙂 – I’d ‘own up’ to posting it. I wasn’t exactly trying to be dishonest or have complete anonymity.

It’s this back and forth nature of anonymity that Hogan (2013, p. 293) argues exists because pseudonymity can work in tandem. He states that it doesn’t work on a sliding scale like that of Donath (1999) described before contemporary social media where there was either the ‘totally anonymous to the thoroughly named.” Hogan says either your presence online lacks identifiable qualities and you are in a state of anonymity, you practice pseudonymity once or continue to use it as a means of ‘persistent alternate markers of identity.’

Man-person-clouds-apply by Static.pexels.com (CC by 2.0)

But hang on a minute, isn’t that trolling? I would have thought this in the early days of digital media. My perception of how someone would portray themselves was just an extension of themselves and not something that seemed so malleable and transitional. As far as I was concerned, if I was online in one place then I’d be expected to be the same person somewhere else. It was this that made interacting online seem so tedious and painful.

I loathed the thought of presenting my ‘job interview’ self to my social media connections while I was concerned that I’d have to keep up the same professionalism for all those that saw me online. I don’t want just my resume to be how people perceive me. It’s this conflict that Marwick and Boyd (cited in van der Nagel & Frith 2015) describe as a context collapse where a user’s entire social network can be found online which forces them to interact and construct an identity that is not segmented as it is typically offline.

‘You’ve got to be very careful what you say online,’ I lectured my younger brother. This is probably the smoking gun of reasons why my online persona has been so limited until recently. As far as I was concerned the online domain was one where employers and people of influence frequented and if you ‘tripped up’ online either bringing attention to yourself by publishing something that you wouldn’t want your neighbour to hear then the digital world was a dangerous place to negotiate. It was alright to look on and spectate what was happening on there but to actually engage and show a side of myself that I didn’t believe would help my job prospects – sent shivers up my spine.

A dystopian rhetoric kicked around by the media and my peers also probably fuelled my perception that it was safer to be hidden online to some extent. It’s a misconception that I used to explain my absence for years. ‘Oh you never know what they could do with your information’ or ‘giant companies shouldn’t have so much power.’

States of Online Identity easel.ly created by Brett Barfoot (CC by 2.0)

It’s this belief that fed my perception that if you were to have an online persona then it had better be professional and that participation on platforms like Facebook was the opposite. I had a Facebook profile in the mid ‘00s which I initially engaged with before I muted it and then ultimately deleted. Wortham (2011) indicates that I wasn’t the only one pulling the plug on Facebook at the time and I could be deemed as a “Facebook Resister.” Also, Facebook user growth in the United States had dropped 56% in 2011 compared to the previous year.

If you could ask my online persona what I thought about digital media in 2006, I would have probably told you that quite frankly, the use of it by others worried me. The existence of peers and family members online is another major reason for the use of pseudonyms. Call me a digital media prude if you like but I was becoming exposed to embarrassing online sagas orchestrated by family members that would force anyone to disconnect. It didn’t take long before I found myself intervening through fear and desperation: “You can’t say that you fool!” I cried. “Take it down, you must take that post down!”

Until recently when I delved into the online world via my Media major did I realise that this type of black and white thinking was not how ultimately engagement and personas online are perceived. Let’s just say that it was fascinating to read of online personas who work across a myriad of different accounts all publishing opinions, views and commentary in different tone and perspectives. It seemed most people used their online personas in different ways for different audiences.

In 2016, I started again. I changed my twitter name and put more thought about how I would be perceived online. This time I’m going to use what I know about identity and audiences to craft myself my very own niche based upon the very best of ‘me’ that I have to offer.

In conclusion I have learnt that the online world doesn’t necessarily have to be a risky place to negotiate if you responsibly think about how you portray yourself. It seems that we’re all involved in a kind of personal branding process where the roles and restrictions of the traditional media that we once relied upon haven fallen away. It’s now up to us to run our very own personal marketing agencies.

So what’s your brand?

(1,086 words not including citations and captions)

My broader online activity and engagement

At this point my participation online and my engagement with digital media is evident in my regular contribution to the unit #hashtags on Twitter and the compilation of my blog: insearch of I – Digital Identity, Participation & Dystopia.

Cover, R 2014, ‘Becoming and Belonging: Performativity, Subjectivity, and the Cultural Purposes of Social Networking,’ in Poletti, A and Rak, J, Identity Technologies: Constructing the Self Online, The University of Wisconsin Press, Madison, p 58.

MORE than a decade has passed since I studied at university and with so much new digital media available, will I be a better student?

Social Media was in its infancy way back in 2003. When I was at
university Facebook wasn’t yet available to the public and Youtube was still years away.

Back then I was just happy to have survived six years of “refer to the back of the book” and “copy this from the blackboard” at High School. Let’s face it, interacting and sharing hasn’t been on school curriculum priorities when ultimately students are expected to sit an exam in silence.

In the past I’ve learnt by reading text, looking at examples and attempting to decipher a strategy to answer the questions. You could test yourself against someone else’s old answer and replicate the method for the future.

But what if you had to come up with the testing phase yourself? Would it be more difficult to learn with so many different opportunities and examples flying around online?

I remember sitting in a Maths class at High School and listening to my teacher rant about how he believed the way we learnt was all wrong. First you learnt this and then you learnt that and then there was a TEST! After the test you moved on to the next area and repeat. Revision seemed to be less important compared with following the instructions, the formula and examples.

Learning in the post digital revolution seems to be quite different. There are so many platforms to access information online; it seems never before have we been asked to engage and interpret information rather than just solely consolidate it.

Thinking versatile; Learning fast.

When I think about my own digital media learning experiences since the early 2000s, I think of jumping from one Youtube channel to the next in order to learn a guitar lick or reading forums to find good fiction writing advice.

It’s this ‘superfluity of communication and publishing’ that Thompson states is a result of our new digital tools and has a huge impact on our ability to think. ‘Today’s tools make it easier to find connections – between ideas, pictures, people, bits of news – that were previously invisible’ (Thompson 2013, p. 11).

Digital media is helping students like me to be better. We are seeing, retaining and communicating more. (Thompson 2013, p. 9).

Thompson argues that we’re smarter now due to a shift from static contemplation of information to a more versatile and delegative approach. ‘This transformation is rippling through every part of our cognition-how we learn, how we remember, and how we act upon that knowledge emotionally, intellectually, and politically’ (Thompson 2013, p. 9).

It seems the spoon-fed must now learn how to direct the spoon. A somewhat culture shock for those who studied before the seismic shift in information sharing. Learning is now participatory more than ever.

Strength in numbers.

Collaboration has become a fundamental aspect of learning in the 21st century and along with digital media provides students the opportunity to gain feedback from 360 degrees. There’s someone on Youtube with a video of the process, there’s a discussion forum about the author’s earlier work and you can download the entire catalogue with a click.

David Gauntlett (Making is Connecting 2010) says that digital media has provided a massive boost to everyday creativity and that by sharing what we’ve created in turn increases engagement and our connection with the world.

Learners like myself will benefit from this interconnected environment of mass information consumption and thanks to the shift from just a few global producers the individual broadcaster has become empowered. ‘Very simply, today, everyone is a producer. So, today, this user, their capacities and their skills have become central to the discipline.” (Merrin 2014, p. 36, p. 147)

With just a few quick tweets I have found myself sharing, producing and learning a vast amount of information via different mediums. It’s possible that I am venturing into the realm of ‘Produsage’ which I hope to explore in future blog posts. While the new experience seems to be quite different compared to my secondary education and early tertiary studies.

When I think back to whether I was a better student at High School with limited resources or now after the Digital Revolution, I hope that I made the best of what I had at the time and understand that now with so much more – I should be better.

Are you better off with digital media? Or are things pretty much the same?

Welcome to In Search of i, a blog regarding identity, participation and the possibilities for dystopia within digital media.

The purpose of these pages is to help crystallise theories of digital media participation for my Media Studies major.

The first post is an attempt to understand how I learnt at High School in the early stages of digital media compared to present where I learn online, participate in a ‘virtual classroom’ and find myself wondering if digital media will help me to be a better student?

What do you think?

Follow me as I attempt to understand just who I suppose myself to be online. I hope to explore questions like: What image do I want to portray online? Why do we do that? What perception do we have of ourselves online that must differ from who we know ourselves to be? Is there a difference? And is this difference related to pressures of societal norms or something else?

I hope to also explore reasons for refusal and why I’ve been a lazy bum until now and not participated online.

Please comment, subscribe and share your thoughts on each post as I attempt to learn and create in a ‘Produsage’ environment.